I tried to raise the humidity in my house by using a cast iron kettle filled with water on top of my Pocono stove, but because of the stoves design the kettle will not get hot enough to evaporate the water. I am looking for a simple way to increase the house humidity. It averages about 30% which seems to be low. Thanks, for any ideas.

if you do a search on here for "humidifiers", many of us use them to keep the humidity levels up during the winter months using the coal stoves. I think Typcially 40-50% is usually pretty good depending on your temperatures.

I tried a 'boiler-style' 2-gallon humidifier the first year I heated with coal, as it worked sort-of OK with my natural gas forced air furnace. Then I decided I needed something better, and cost-free to operate.

So, I started hosing down the painted concrete basement floor where my stove is, and put a cheapo box fan blowing the air essentially 'in a circle' around the basement (center of house stairway). It was OK, but I still wanted more humidity. So I started hanging 5-6 soaking wet, large bath towel sized rags on a line in the basement. I did this twice a day. OK, but after 2 years, I got tired of filling the basement wash tub, dunking in the rags, etc. So this year, I've changed my schedule to 3 times a day, but hosing the floor only. I stay a lot drier as a result.

Note that I also have a floor squeegee, and that I only hose down the area directly accesible from the sink, which covers 2 sides of the house and the one side up to stairwell. There's a low spot in the floor about 8 feet in front of and to the right of the stove. So after dumping the ash, filling the hopper, and cleaning the glass, I squeegee any standing water into the hard to reach areas, then spray with the hose. Additionally, I have the basement door removed, so the warmed air in the basement naturally drifts upstairs. According to my digital temperature/humidity meter in the living room, the humidity stays somewhere near 44-50%. So I can't complain at all. Living alone does have it's benefits.

One more thing...it took me 3 seasons to finally 'perfect' my air distribution system. I simply 'plugged into' the main hot air trunk about 4 feet from the furnace, and experimented with how to get the cold air back to the stove. I tried fans blowing down the basement steps, tapping into front-of-house cold air returns, and finally settled into tapping directly into the main 'down plenum' cold air return just before it goes into the furnace. That seems to work best. Note that I have a removeable 'blocking sheetmetal' preventing backflow into the furnace hot plenum from the stove and I'm using 2 inline 405 CFM fans to move the heated air around the house.

My friend at work has a wife that insisted to constantly run the "in furnace humidifier" wide open. They added so much water in the air that all the windows had a layer of moisture on them and the attic became covered with mold. Then they had to have a pro come deal with the mold problem, big money no wammies

I suggested he get a hygrometer so he could see how much humidity they actually had in his house. He replied with, "whats that? they make something to measure humidity??"

For those with a double-layer stove top, try sliding a small cookie sheet into the vent on the front of the stove. Fill the cookie sheet with water by using a turkey baster. The hot air flowing over the cookie sheet from the convection fan will evaporate much more water than putting a pot on top of the stove during the shoulder months.